


Whiskey and Wool

by Threshie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, First Aid, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Sam Winchester, Rain, Sam Winchester Takes Care of Dean Winchester, Sleeping in the Impala (Supernatural), Touchy-Feely, Wet Clothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threshie/pseuds/Threshie
Summary: Dean is hurt on a Wendigo hunt, and the weather's too dangerous to drive down the mountain in. Sam patches him up and they settle in for a night in the Impala.





	Whiskey and Wool

The rain on Baby’s rooftop was almost musical. The storm had come on suddenly, with just a couple rolls of thunder before the sky opened up. Sam and Dean had been out in the woods all day on a hunt. The Wendigos were dead, but not without both of the boys catching claws at some point. They’d burned the monsters’ bodies in the cave the things had called home, then set out limping down the mountain, leaning on each other and each promising the other that they’d take it easy for a few days once they reached the motel.

Except they never reached the motel.

The storm struck before they even reached the Impala, in fact. Sam and Dean hiked for almost fifteen minutes in the dumping icy rain before the shiny black car was in sight. They were both soaked to the skin, their clothes and boots soggy, hair plastered down to their faces. Dean had taken the worst of the Wendigo claws; he was holding around his stomach, out of breath. 

“Lean on me, Dean. Dean,” Sam said, trying to get his attention. When exhausted green eyes looked up at him, Sam took Dean by the shoulders and moved his brother to lean up against his chest. Dean put up no resistance; Sam was pretty sure he wouldn’t be on his feet without somebody to lean on right now.

Yanking the back door of the car open, Sam helped his brother climb in and sit on the broad bench seat. He scrambled in afterward, hands and feet clumsy from the cold and wet, and closed the door after them. 

It was cold in there, too. Baby’s leather seats chilled down when nobody had run the heater in awhile, but it hardly mattered when their clothes were so drenched, anyway. Dean groaned and curled up a little more on his side of the seat. Ignoring the bleeding claw marks on his own cheek, Sam turned to his brother, taking hold of his wrist to gently lift his hand away from his side. Dean’s palm came away bloody, his clothes soaked through dark on that side. It looked bad.

“Damn…stupid…” Dean was mumbling and wincing. It was unclear whether he was calling himself stupid or the Wendigo, but Sam’s reaction was the same either way.

“I’m gonna patch you up,” he said, pressing Dean’s hand back to his side. “Hold pressure, you know the drill. Gonna get the first aid kit from the trunk.”

Dean sighed and hissed in pain at the movement. Worriedly, Sam hopped out of the car and back into the dumping rain to circle to the back of the car. Baby was decked out with everything a hunter could ask for, including a wide variety of weapons and a very well-stocked medical kit. He could hardly see through the hair hanging over his forehead, and water was running down his nose and chin into the trunk as he pulled out the kit and a few other things. Bed roll. Blanket. He had a feeling nobody was going to be driving for awhile, and they might just spend the night out here.

When he got back into the car, Dean wasn’t holding his hand over the wound anymore. He was slumped on the seat, pale and still. Sam’s heart jumped in his chest. If his brother hadn’t been taking short quick panting breaths, he could have been mistaken for dead.

“Dean! Hey hey, no, wake up,” Sam said quickly, hopping back into the car. He dumped the armload of supplies on the seat and patted Dean’s cheeks, trying to rouse him. His brother’s brows pinched, but he didn’t open his eyes.

“Ugh…Sammy,” he mumbled. Forgetting the open door behind him, Sam unzipped the first aid kit and started yanking supplies out. Turning to Dean, he pressed a wad of gauze up against his side and pushed down on it tightly. Dean groaned and shivered, grabbing weakly at his hands. 

“Sorry,” Sam said, wincing sympathetically. “I know, Dean, it hurts, but I have to. Hey, once you’re patched up I’m gonna turn on the heater, that’ll be nice, huh? We’ll be nice and warm.”

“Motel,” Dean mumbled, eyes still closed. He was frowning, but not shoving at Sam’s hand any longer. Sam glanced behind him at the open door, the rain a sheer curtain of water outside. 

“I don’t think we can drive down the mountain in this weather, Dean,” he admitted. “But we’ve got blankets, and the heater, and I-I’ll keep you warm.”

He put Dean’s hand over the gauze, relieved when his brother seemed able to hold onto it himself again. Turning to the first aid kit, Sam pulled out more supplies — more gauze, medical tape, thread and needle for stitching. He plucked the bottle of whiskey from under the back seat and opened it up, holding it up to Dean’s lips. His brother took several big swigs of the alcohol without hesitation — he looked a little annoyed when Sam took it away from him. 

“Gotta lay you down,” Sam said, sliding his arms around his brother as gently as he could to lift him. Dean’s face was practically pressed into the shoulder of Sam’s wet flannel shirt, and he was shivering pretty bad in Sam’s arms. He made a pained growl as Sam lay him back on the seat.

Checking to be sure his hand was still holding the gauze, Sam patted Dean’s hair gently. 

“Okay…okay, gonna patch you up.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbled. He still sounded like he was gritting his teeth, but was wincing less. Sam hoped the whiskey was sinking in. He started unbuttoning Dean’s flannel shirt, then carefully ripping through the parts of his T-shirt that hadn’t already been shredded by Wendigo claws. 

Dean was watching him, and moved his hand aside before Sam had to ask. Sam gave him a small smile, peeling the bloodied shirts out of the way and getting his first good look at the wounds. There were several big claw slashes across Dean’s side. They looked bad, and probably hurt like hell, but Sam was glad to see that they weren’t actually that deep. 

“Not so bad,” he told Dean, “You’re gonna be okay, I’ve got this.” 

Dean looked up at the roof of the Impala, biting his lip and nodding. Sam wet a new piece of gauze with the whiskey and set to work cleaning the wounds. Dean gasped when he first touched them, grabbing his wrist. He relaxed after a moment, though, laying still and wincing around gritted teeth.

“Almost done, Dean,” Sam promised, wincing sympathetically when his brother made a little groan in reply. 

“Stitches,” Dean muttered, eyes closed, brows furrowed low. 

Dabbing ointment into the wounds, Sam shook his head.

“They’re not deep — you don’t need ‘em.” Dean looked at him in surprise, then huffed a small sigh of relief. Yeah, Sam was glad they didn’t have to use the needle and thread, either. Not that they hadn’t both done their own stitches before, over the years.

Sam dropped the ointment into the first aid kit again, then quickly dressed the wounds. The scratches were too big for any conventional bandages — Sam covered them with fresh gauze and medical tape. Dean started to zone out again while he did so, and only winced a tiny bit. Sam concluded that the whiskey had sunken in enough to relax his brother. That was good, that meant it was probably helping with the pain, too.

He shoved the medical kit under the seat and sat back up, looking Dean over. His brother had his eyes closed, a slight grimace on his face. He was still shivering. 

Remembering his promise to keep Dean warm, Sam slipped out the open car door and back into the rain. He climbed into the front seat to start Baby’s engine. The low rumble of the engine snapped Dean out of it, and Sam immediately felt guilty when he heard the plaintive voice from the back seat.

“Sammy…? Sam?”

“I’m here, Dean,” he assured his brother, reaching a hand over the seat to pat Dean’s arm. Dean gripped his hand. He didn’t say it aloud, but the grip did it for him — Sam had managed to scare him, however briefly. 

“You okay?” Dean asked, looking at him. Sam wanted to shake his head in exasperation, but then Dean would think he wasn’t okay. His injuries were very minor compared to Dean’s — he just thought it was so typical for Dean to be concerned about HIM when it was obvious who the worse-off party was, here. 

“I’m okay,” Sam murmured instead, smiling despite himself. “I’m just running the heater for a bit, here. You’re shaking like a leaf, we’ve gotta warm you up.”

Dean groaned softly and closed his eyes, still visibly shaking. 

“I-I’m fine,” he mumbled. “Just cold.” 

A low growl of thunder sounded outside, and the rain actually managed to fall even harder than it had been doing before. Sam hoped they didn’t run into any landslides through the road on the trip back down.

“You’re cold and you’ve lost some blood,” Sam corrected him. “AND you’re in pain.” 

“M’fine,” Dean mumbled stubbornly. “Forget the heater, just…come back here.”

Sam looked back at him and found Dean laying there with his eyes closed. His brows were pinched with pain even the whiskey couldn’t help. Dean, he realized, was more comforted by having Sam close than by having the heater on. He seemed to have some lingering instincts from the Wendigo hunt, ones that said not to let Sam out of his sight.

The car had heated up enough to make the windows start to fog. Sam turned the key in the ignition, killing the engine. He tried to move quickly from the front door to the back, climbing back inside beside Dean and slamming the door closed this time. The whole inside of it was wet. So were Sam’s clothes, but Dean didn’t seem to care — he reached for his brother the moment Sam was close enough, wincing at the way it stretched his wounded side. 

“Okay, okay,” Sam soothed, resting a hand on his chest. “Just let me get the blanket and I’ll lay down with you.” That was the best way to keep Dean warm and he knew it. If cuddling up with his brother in the backseat of the car seemed odd, Sam didn’t really care. They’d fallen asleep snuggled together in this exact spot a lot as kids, before their dad started telling them they were too old to do that anymore. 

Under normal circumstances, Dean probably would’ve pretended to agree with that view, but Sam knew him better than that. Dean hardly ever got hugged or comforted by anyone. And he was in pain, in pain because he’d jumped into the way when SAM was about to get clawed. Sam was going to take care of him whether he grumbled about it or not.

Dean didn’t grumble, though. The fact that he’d actually asked Sam to come back to the back seat was kind of alarming in itself — now, as Sam settled beside him and Dean turned to bury his face in his brother’s chest, Sam was starting to worry that he was worse off than he looked. That was the biggest wound, though, and the cuts had been shallow…

Wrapping his arm around Dean, Sam rubbed his back gently up and down. 

“Dean,” he whispered. “Hey, you okay?”

Dean made a sleepy little grumbling sound in response, nuzzling closer to Sam. The grumble actually reassured Sam, and he couldn’t help a small smile. 

“That was a long hike down the mountain, huh?” He murmured, continuing to rub Dean’s back. His brother made a small sound of agreement, sighing slowly. Sam pulled the blanket up over them, hugging it around Dean’s back and going back to rubbing between his shoulder blades. Dean relaxed against him, and Sam gave a slow sigh. 

They’d be okay. Yeah, they’d be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for reading my fic! This fic is just a little Winchester hurt/comfort, with Sam taking care of Dean for once instead of the other way around. Comments and kudos always appreciated! ♥


End file.
